Does God Ever Condone Divorce?

In the last article, I referred to Malachi 2:16 which states God’s attitude toward divorce. It says: “For the Lord God of Israel says the He hates divorce, for it covers one’s garment with violence.” God hates divorce because marriage was His idea. He intended it to be “till death do us part.” And He hates what divorce does to a family – shredding and tearing it apart, leaving broken hearts and devastated people in its wake.

But, yet, when Jesus was talking to the Pharisees (Actually, they had come to try and trap Him again with a loaded question), they tried to make the argument that God actually condones divorce. As a matter of fact, they asserted, Moses went so far as to command getting one. This conversation is recorded in Matthew 19:7-9:

7 They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?”
8 He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.”

“But, see,” they accused. “Moses commanded that the husband give his wife a certificate of divorce.” They could only be referring to Deuteronomy 24:1-4. No other passage written by Moses even gets near divorce. But in this passage, Moses addressed the issue of a woman who was given a divorce and married someone else, saying that she could not be taken again as the first man’s wife. Try as you might in reading those verses, there is no way you can find a command to divorce. It simply acknowledges that divorce exists, and it commands that the man could not remarry his ex-wife once she had defiled herself. Jesus, of course, answered correctly that Moses made no command to divorce, Moses merely a concession.

Divorce wasn’t God’s intention. Divorce is the result of sinful men with hardened hearts who refuse to repent. Divorce, therefore, is merely allowed as a gracious concession allowing an out to the offended party. The one sinned against is not required to stay in an impossible situation. This is why divorce is never labeled sin in the Bible. Some divorces are allowed in limited situations.

Scripture is clear that divorce is always caused by sin, at least one of the marriage partners, but it isn’t always sin. Divorce is caused when one party persists in unrepentant sin and hardens their heart, and the other simply needs an out. So, no! Divorce is never God’s best and never God’s plan, but it is only God’s concession to protect the innocent victim of a spouse’s unrepentant continuing sin.

You can see this from the very next thing Jesus says in Matthew 19:9,

“And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.”

First, why does God consider it adultery if a man divorces his wife without cause and marries another? It is because God considers the first marriage to be still in effect. You cannot simply get rid of a spouse you don’t want any more. God does not recognize no-fault divorce, even though the human judge may.

The only exception Jesus gave in Matthew 19:9 is “except for sexual immorality.” The word is often translated as adultery, but it means much more than only adultery. The word in Greek is porneia, which gives us our English word, pornography. It refers to all kinds of illicit sexual sins including fornication, adultery, prostitution, and homosexuality. Granted this is a controversial passage, and there are many views as to what Jesus actually meant. Some commentators seek obscure meanings, while others take it at face value. We won’t take time now to examine all the various views, but usually you should take the plain meaning if it makes sense as the best.

There is a gracious exception if your spouse is involved in unrelenting sexual sin. This is the only exception given by Jesus – a one flesh bonding outside the covenant of marriage. The emphasis of Jesus seems to be to restrict divorce, not allow it for any reason. Paul seems to give a couple of other exceptions (The abandonment by an unsaved spouse, and possibly a divorce having taken place prior to salvation), but we won’t take time now to cover them.

What I do want to do before I close, however, is say this: My purpose has not been to hammer on divorcees adding guilt to the pain they have already experienced. If you were one of the innocent victims in a divorce who did everything in your power to keep the marriage together, there is no sin on your part. You need feel no guilt. You were the one who was sinned against by a hard-hearted spouse. The church needs to support and love you.

But either way, God forgives, and God comforts. He is in the business of strengthening His children and of putting lives back together. Our purpose is not dump on you, but rather to encourage those of you who are now in a troubled marriage to stick with it. Don’t throw in the towel. Keep fighting for your marriage.

You see what God says about marriage and divorce. Will you submit to the Bible’s teaching? The late Francis Schaeffer said, “If we believe the Bible is totally true, we cannot dodge its claim on our lives in sensitive areas such as divorce.” We don’t follow the lead of the world, we follow the teaching of Scripture.

The Tragedy of Easy Divorce

Another way Satan attacks the institution of marriage is through easy divorce laws. Some of you can probably remember the way it was in the “good old days” of our parent’s generation. If you can’t remember it, you probably have watched it on “Ozzie and Harriet” reruns. Back then, divorce was rare. Divorce left a stigma on a person’s life. It carried a certain amount of shame to be divorced.

You couldn’t even get a divorce unless you proved adultery by your spouse. That’s why they hired private detectives to snap pictures through cracks between the bedroom curtains. There was enormous social and economic pressure for couples to stay together. There was a lot if incentive to “work it out,” to “hang in there” for the sake of the kids.

Sure, marriages weren’t all good, but they stuck. And the benefit was that kids were raised by both parents. But today, we live in the age of “No-Fault Divorce.” People can dissolve a marriage in our society for any reason, or for no reason at all.

Currently, the most common reason given for divorce is communication problems. Couples feel incompatible because they don’t communicate, so they divorce. But is our society better for it? Are people happier? Hardly! And, for sure, the kids aren’t better off.

Maybe God was right. Jesus gives us God’s opinion on divorce and marriage in Matthew 19:3-6:

3 The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?”
4 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Jesus was asked a point blank question by the Pharisees. In effect, it was, “Is no-fault divorce acceptable?” To answer, Jesus pointed the Pharisees back to creation and quoted from Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:24. He wants them to understand God’s original intent for marriage. What was God’s intent? Marriage is to last “till death do us part.” God designed marriage to be one man with one woman for life. God created marriage as a one-flesh relationship – a loving, intimate union of two persons into one flesh that lasts until one of them dies. They are no longer two, but “one flesh,” acting as visual flesh and blood pictures of the relationship between Christ and the Church.

Can a marriage be dissolved? Well, can flesh be torn asunder? Obviously! The answer is yes. We see it happen all the time. But what is involved in tearing flesh asunder, of ripping a body apart?
In marriage, it involves the destruction of a family. From God’s use of the terms, it is obvious that divorce is like a person being ripped in two, and the pain and agony that is involved in doing it is intense. And the death that follows is the death of the family - the union God Himself had blessed. Therefore, Jesus stated, “What God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Why do people divorce? It is because people refuse to deal with the problems that inevitably arise between them. They prefer to destroy the union because they refuse to yield their own desires or refuse to yield their own way. They refuse to obey God.

God says that divorce is not a satisfactory solution. He glued you together with permanent glue, the best available so you couldn’t come apart. Only with great difficulty can two things glued together be separated. Try to separate two pieces of wood glued together with good wood glue. The pieces don’t separate at the joint, but the wood tears along its own grain. That means you can’t separate the two pieces without doing great damage. The same principle applies to marriage. You can’t separate the partners in a marriage without great damage. But it is not supposed to be that way. You glue things together so they won’t come apart.

The symbol is to be as permanent as the reality. Since the marriage represents Christ’s relationship to His bride the church, we can glean principles. We can’t lose our salvation once we have been born-again through repentant faith in Jesus Christ. If we could, it would be like ripping off Christ’s arm or leg because we are part of His body. Can you see why God has such a bad attitude against divorce?

Malachi 2:16 declares:

“For the LORD God of Israel says
That He hates divorce,
For it covers one’s garment with violence,”
Says the LORD of hosts.
Therefore take heed to your spirit,
That you do not deal treacherously.”

When God says, “For it covers one’s garment with violence,” He is talking about torn flesh, about victims. Since in that day only the man could file for divorce, divorce left the wife broken hearted and destitute. It left children fatherless. It left homes shattered. And God hates it! He hates that kind of violence.

Do you think God has changed his mind? Malachi 3:6 says, “For I am the LORD, I do not change.” God has always hated divorce, and He still hates it. “But my divorce was justified,” you might say. God still hates it. He forgives it, but He hates the consequences. We need to fight to preserve our marriages, not give up and divorce.

Widespread Acceptance of Adultery – a Death Knell to Marriage

Satan is attacking marriage in three ways in our day: He attacks through rampant hedonism, through widespread acceptance of adultery, and through easy divorce laws. I want to look now at our culture’s destructive acceptance of adultery as simply human nature and to be expected.

We previously made the case that sex (oxytocin as the chemical carrier) acts as a glue to cement our marriages together. But with adultery, that glue isn’t sticky any more. Like tape that is used over and over, it loses its stickiness. Likewise, we lose the ability to cleave to our wives the more often we fall in and out of love. Now in our society, one third of married men and women claim to have had at least one affair. Two thirds of men and half of the women wish they could spend more time making love (bad term for having casual sex), but not with their current lover. So the stickiness of marriage is certainly diminished.

But, the world encourages that kind of immorality. It actually expects that kind of behavior. They claim it adds a little spice to life. Read the columns that the worldly “experts” write, and you can see their encouragement of adultery. Dagmar O’Connor, Director of Sexual Therapy at St. Luke’s- Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City, gave these “helpful suggestions” to improve your sex life in marriage:

“When you pass a bedroom window with the blinds drawn, try to picture the sexual scene a couple might be playing.” “Try mentally undressing people you see around you.” “Imagine other couples making love.” “Some couples enjoy flirting at parties.”

How can adding someone else into the midst of your marital intimacy, even if in fantasy, help strengthen the bond of cleaving? How does any of this fit with what Jesus said in Matthew 5:27-28, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” How can adultery in any way fit into a God-designed and God-honoring marriage?

Now here is another question: If a little adultery is good for marriage, why are there so many broken hearts and divorces caused by adultery? It is because even though our glands can convince our minds that an open marriage is good, we can’t convince our hearts. They still get broken.

How much better to listen to God. God takes sexual sin seriously, and God condemns all sexual intercourse outside of marriage. More than that, in the Old Testament, any illicit sexual activity involving married persons demanded the death penalty. Read Leviticus 20:1-14 to see this. That’s serious. And God’s law demanded that fornicators marry. Plus, two of the Ten Commandments relate to the sanctity of marriage. The Seventh Commandment found in Exodus 20:14 states: “You shall not commit adultery.” Plus, the tenth Command found in Exodus 20:17 states: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.” Not only is the act of adultery condemned, but even the intent is forbidden. For a married person even to want another, to desire another, was terrible. And it is a death knell to marriage.

Adultery is a great destroyer of marriage. Any married person who even flirts around the edges of adultery is creating great damage to his marriage. A man is commanded to leave his mother and father and cle

The Attack of Rampant Hedonism

Marriage is under intense attack by Satan. Over the next few articles I will examine three ways Satan attacks: 1. rampant hedonism (the playboy philosophy) 2. widespread acceptance of adultery 3. easy divorce

All three of these attacks of Satan are made palatable, acceptable, and even desirable to us by the love of self. If our philosophy is, “I’m number one!” where we elevate ourselves to the most important position, we won’t defend our marriage. We won’t fight for it. The “me” marriage isn’t one we are usually willing to put any effort in to.

Let’s look at rampant hedonism. This is also called the “New Morality,” which really means “No Morality.” It is sometimes referred to as the “Sexual Revolution,” a revolt against Biblical morality. The philosophy is simply this: sex with whomever and whenever we feel like it. “After all, everybody is doing it.” At least that is what they want us to think. Sex is fine, they say, before and outside of marriage. That’s why we need to hand out condoms in our high schools, because we can’t expect the kids to show any restraint. Really? Why can’t you? Who is giving them all this unsupervised time anyway? It’s too bad they don’t have parents.

In reality, the new morality is simply sex out of control, sex with no ethical norms, except some vague, “As long as it doesn’t hurt anyone.” That, of course, is determined by the situation, we are told. Ethics are situational, that is their mantra. But who can really tell what the situation is? Do you know all the facts in any given situation? Can anyone make a rational decision in the passion of the moment while alone in the back seat of a car on some secluded lane? Or while cuddled alone in front of the fireplace in your apartment? Can you rationally consider the consequences in the passion of the moment? Not on your life! The raging hormones turn off the rational part of the brain.

Can you always anticipate the consequences of getting AIDs or herpes to take home to your marriage partner? How about an unplanned baby? Nor do people consider the hurt to their spouse at having to share what God intended as exclusive. That applies even to your future spouse who, yes, will be sick at heart that you didn’t wait.

Or can you know the consequences caused by the dissatisfaction it might bring into your marriage? You might find that your spouse does not live up to the excitement the other illicit relationships brought you, or that pornography showed you. You live continually with the desire for someone else other than your spouse, feeding off fantasies or pornography. As Gary Thomas writes concerning the man effected by pornography, “His expectations have been jettisoned to a dangerous place. He’s trained himself to think that women like to do certain things, actually enjoy certain things, and act in ways that bear zero resemblance to reality.”

Or, your past indiscretions could leave such guilt or such bad feelings toward sex that you rob your partner. When you get married, you always bring your past into the marriage. And illicit sex may leave you experienced, but it never gives you the tools to enjoy God-ordained sexual intimacy in marriage.

Hedonism is always destructive to marriage. As Gary Thomas says:

“If there weren’t consequences to sexual sin, it seems unlikely that God would forbid it. He is a gracious God, not capricious, definitely not malicious, and amazingly kind and generous. Directly rebelling against His wisdom, doing nothing about it, and then expecting there to be no consequences is worse than calling God a liar; it is calling Him a pleasure-killing, malicious liar.”

If that defined your life as a single, it carries over into marriage. Only repentance and forgiveness can break you free from its chains of slavery. According to Gary Thomas, “God can intervene, restore, and recreate, but He doesn’t do that on the back of fraud and denial. He heals through the practice of confession, repentance, and the applied blood of Jesus Christ. Anything less won’t cut it.” Only then can you, in the words of Dr. Steve Wilke, “surrender yourselves in a relationship where you are truly loved, cared for, and protected, and where there is spiritual covering through prayer and the Word.” That is the joy of Biblical sex.

Oneness in Marriage

There is a oneness in marriage much deeper than the mere joining of bodies. You live in the same place sharing the same address. There is a oneness in your name. You are now Mr. and Mrs. Whatever. You live together, eat the same food, share the same bathroom and bed. And you have a oneness because of the many memories that you have built together. All these unite a husband and a wife.

And you have a oneness in the children you create together. Each of you gives a part of yourself to create a whole, new eternal human being. And soon, Junior begins to walk like Daddy, and has that smile or dimple of his Mommy. They are like you because they are from you. They are indeed a part of you, of both of you, genetically and environmentally. They are the perfect example of one flesh. Not two, but one made out of two. That’s what a marriage is. As God said in Genesis 2:24, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

In a body, there is no competition, no playing off one against another. There is no keeping score, no making comparisons. There is no insistence on a 50-50 division of anything. Each is giving 100% to the body. Each is working for the other – pulling with, not against the other. That is one flesh – loving, united, intimate and permanent. This is the kind of an earthly relationship that Christ chose to symbolize His own relationship with the church – loving, united, intimate, and permanent.

This relationship was described by Paul in Ephesians 5:28-32, which is part of his long, extended passage on marriage:

28 So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. 30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. 31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

A husband loves his wife as his own body because they are one flesh. It is only logical he would nourish and cherish her. But this is only symbolic of the same great union we have as believers with Christ. We are part of His body and His bride. This is why Paul calls it a great mystery. We thought this passage talked about marriage, when in reality it talked about Christ and the church. Our marriages have such deep spiritual significance because they are a picture of Christ and the church. The husband must treat his wife as Christ treated the church, loving her enough to die for her. The wife must treat the husband with the same love and submission that the church has for Christ. When that happens, our marriages reveal that perfect unity of being one flesh.

Marriage: the First and Most Basic of All Human Institutions

God created marriage. First, He made a man. Then He criticized creation stating, “It is not good that man should be alone.” So He made a woman and joined her to the man in marriage. God began human life with a family.

Is that significant? Well, does a cat meow? Is the Empire State Building tall? Of course it is significant. God established marriage as the first and most basic of all human institutions. Long before there were governments, churches, schools, or any other social structure, God started with a family. He started with a home based on the mutual respect of a husband and a wife.

All other human institutions grew out of the home. From the authority of the father developed the patriarchal and later tribal systems of government, then monarchies and democracies. From parental responsibility to raise and educate kids developed formal systems of education – schools, colleges, and universities. Nurturing responsibilities in the home led to hospitals and orphanages. The parent’s responsibility to teach their children about God led to Synagogues, churches, Sunday Schools, and Vacation Bible Schools. You can’t think of a social or cultural organization that did not grow out of the home and marriage.

But now there is a problem. Marriage is under attack! The attacks are coming from every quarter. It doesn’t matter where you look. The media and the entertainment industry makes fun of or ignores Biblical marriages. The educational establishment and even government is pushing an inclusive view of marriage. Even some churches are condoning same-sex marriage. Marriage as an institution is tottering – it is being destroyed from the bottom up. And who can doubt it?

The September cover story in “The Journal” of Summit Ministries states,

“The push for same-sex marriage has succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations for one simple reason: Americans quit caring about marriage as an institution. Like Jacob throwing away his birthright for a pot of stew [they meant Esau but misspoke], Americans have become apathetic about the one institution without which civilization cannot survive. They’ve lost the plot and forgotten what marriage is for and why it is good.”

In the largest ever survey of morality and attitudes in the United States with the results printed in the book, “The Day America Told the Truth,” we read,

“The majority of men and women now believe in their hearts that it is a good idea to live together before marriage. Almost half of all Americans take that thought one step further: nearly half of us say that there is no reason to ever get married. And even when children are involved, only 32 percent of us believe that we should try to stick out a bad marriage for the sake of the kids. Divorce in fact is what will happen to most marriages. Forty-four percent of us agree that most marriages will end in divorce. And this fact may gladden the hearts of some lawyers: a thumping 59 percent of all Americans believe that it’s a smart idea to draw up a prenuptial agreement, just in case.”

That’s scary!

The number of unmarried-couple households has increased from 523,000 in 1970 to 4,236,000 in 1998. Professor Roger Rubin at the University of Maryland estimates “that by the year 2000 [this is an old prophecy but still true], half of all American adults will have had a cohabitating experience by the age of 30.” Unfortunately, the Houston Chronicle reports that couples who live together before marriage have an 80 percent greater chance of divorce than those who don’t cohabitate. Oh, yes, marriage is in trouble.

This is so scary because of the consequences. If marriage falls, than all the other institutions that grew out of marriage will inevitably fall too. That means churches, schools, businesses, hospitals, and governments. Are we not seeing that happen before our eyes?

But what gives us hope is this: God is on the side of marriage. It was God who said, “A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh.” In other words, marriage as it should be is God’s intention. And praise God, he gave us His instruction manual if we will only follow it.

What If You Have Blown It?

Last time we talked about the dangers of dating relationships and about “How far was too far?” We ended with a statement that God condemns premarital sex (Any sex outside of marriage, for that matter). IT is quite simple: Don’t do it! But that leads naturally to the next question: “What if I’ve already blown it?” “What if I didn’t wait till marriage?” What if I did mess up by not remaining pure in my relationships?”

The obvious answer is to seek God’s forgiveness. 1st John 1:9 states, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” God can forgive you. God can make you clean. He can clear your record. He only asks you to confess that sin to Him.

Can His forgiveness even include sexual sin? Oh, yes! Of course! 1st Corinthians 6:9-11 gives us an example:

9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

The church contains many who were once great sinners. There are many who blew it sexually. But when they came to Christ for forgiveness, they were made clean.

No sin is ever too great for the Lord to cleanse. If you’ve confessed it, you are clean before Him. He doesn’t take away the consequences. With an unplanned pregnancy, the baby is still there. You can never give away your virginity again. Any STD you may have contracted still needs medical care. And the scars on your soul may well last a lifetime. But before God, you are esteemed as if you had never sinned. Don’t let Satan burden you with any guilt. Jesus has removed your guilt. Jesus paid the penalty for it on the Cross. So believe that God loves you, and that you are clean, forgiven, washed, and sanctified.

But what if it wasn’t your sin? What if the one you love was the one who sinned? What if the one you’ve fallen in love with has a past? The answer is: You must forgive them. Perhaps you feel that you have been a victim – that someone else led you into sin, that they took advantage of your love. You must forgive them. You must forgive for both of your sakes.

Ephesians 4:31-32 states:

31 Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. 32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

I have counseled a number of young men who were in love with a girl with a past. They wanted her so much they couldn’t bring themselves to break up, they hoped to marry her, yet they were tormented continually that she had slept with another man. They would continually bring up her past and argue with her. In general, they made her life miserable. Now there is nothing wrong with wanting to marry a virgin. That should be every man’s dream. But they have fallen in love with a nice Christian girl who isn’t. My counsel has always been this: You must forgive immediately. If you can’t, you must break off the relationship for her best interest. But from this day forth, you must never bring it up again or ever hold it against her. 1st Peter 4:7 tells us that “love will cover a multitude of sins.” You cannot be God’s instrument of wrath against her for something that God has forgiven. If you love her, you will not add to her pain.

Why must you forgive? Because before God, she is clean. God has cleansed her and erased that sin from her record. He has buried that sin in the depths of the deepest sea. He has sent it as far away as the east is from the west. He has covered it over with a thick cloud and promised to remember it no more. If you truly love this woman, you will do the same.